From the rumbling sounds of traffic on highways into mountain trails,
passersby brushing past become clusters of trees,
setting down phone notifications to listen to birdsong,
five days, ten days,
then gradually drawing near again,
back to traffic, voices, phone sounds.
Again and again I switch between town and trail, two different spaces in time, alternating between civilization and forest. On this information-overloaded planet, there seems to be a quiet corner that belongs to me alone. Conversation and solitude take turns as well, though which belongs to town and which to trail seems to blur together.
Walking and conversing with nature, and with myself.
(Reflections from journal entry 2017/3/20)
Before me lay such a beautiful Lake Angelus, yet my heart remained heavy with melancholy.
This was the third time my feet had flared up in pain since starting this Te Araroa journey. The pattern repeated: right foot pain, then left foot, and now my right foot ached again.
For the sake of my pre-booked mountain hut, I—who typically refused medicine even for colds or dental extraction—swallowed a painkiller determined to make it up anyway. Yet I never really knew if it helped, because every step still brought tears to my eyes, and several times I nearly stumbled, my feet too weak from pain to lift properly.
Yet I will always remember this day—every painful step of it, the natural beauty that numbed the pain better than any painkiller could, and that version of myself who pushed forward at any cost.
‘Just one more step.’
One painkiller tablet cannot match the power of sheer willpower.
(Reflections from journal entry 2017/3/22)
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